


This Is Not A Cuddling Ficlet (Barret Insists)

by Rellanka



Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [65]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, Polyamory, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25159699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Rellanka
Summary: Cloud gets yet another of his PTSD flashes spliced with Sephiroth-influenced migraines but this time doesn't have to deal with it alone.
Relationships: Cloud Strife/Barret Wallace, Cloud Strife/Barret Wallace/Tifa Lockhart/Jessie/Biggs/Wedge
Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [65]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697269
Comments: 4
Kudos: 125





	This Is Not A Cuddling Ficlet (Barret Insists)

Barret wondered, half frozen in shock and half frozen because he genuinely didn’t want to end… what the fuck this was, no matter that he didn’t know how the hell this had even happened. 

Well, he had some idea as to how it _began_ at least. Spike was having another of those episodes where he shuddered and quaked and basically looked like he was trapped in a living nightmare, and Barret had been unable to witness another one of **those** without jerking the scrawny little asshole into his arms and holding him while he shook.

And despite what people liked to assume Barret actually wasn’t an idiot, okay? He knew full well that you weren’t supposed to touch people that were having episodes like that, but **not** touching Spike had never seemed to do a damn thing to help before, and Barret was just really fucking tired of watching a man he was beginning to care for (more than he cared to admit) suffer while he did fuck-all about it. 

So he’d hugged the man, fully prepared to maybe lose a limb for the idiocy, and Spike had pushed into his hold, gasping like he was drowning and Barret had just given him fresh air, holding on like Barret was the buoy keeping him afloat. 

Tifa had approached next, that he knew, wrapping her slim arms around Cloud from behind and pressing herself as tightly to his back as she could. Next had been Wedge, approaching cautiously, unthreateningly from the side and gently wrapping all three of them into his arms. Last were Biggs and Jesse, simultaneously, both approaching from Cloud’s other side and closing the circuit so that Cloud was fully surrounded in warm, soft support. 

Barret didn’t know how they’d wound up on the bed from there, from that moment. Well, he kind of knew, but the memories were dreamlike and almost hazy. Him pulling away after Spike had finally stopped shaking and seemed exhausted and worn but a little better off then Barret had ever seen him after one of those episodes. Taking Spike’s arm after everyone else also pulled away, directing him down the hall to Barret’s own bed, the others trailing along behind them like a string of ducklings. Pushing an unresisting, pliant Spike into the bed and following along behind him. The others slipping into the bed themselves, somehow managing to squeeze six forms on a bed that was big, but not meant for nearly that many; though it took half of them basically being on top of the others for them to fit.

So yeah, Barret guessed he did know how this had happened. But he wasn’t sure of what it meant, or what sort of discussion it was going to bring for the future. 

He guessed he would just have to find out. 

In the morning, because sure as fuck he wasn’t going to ruin this rare period of peace to find out now.

Brushing a whisper-soft kiss against the blond hair of the form in his arms, Barret closed his eyes. 

And went to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is kind of a precursor to them all winding up together, which does eventually happen after a lot of denial, confusion, misunderstandings, and cursing. And all of those are only partially because of Barret. Even the last.


End file.
